Leinster Under 21 Football

[Kevin]

From Radio 3

Meath 2-16
Offaly 1-10

[dubbiff]

Well that was my first time seeing the U21's in action and I had been looking forward to seeing them in action and Peter Cunningham in particular. However being just 1 point ahead at halftime after playing with a stiff breeze meant a huge task ahead in the second half. Meath were strong in the central positions and had flyers in the forward line (in fact all three full forwards had super games). Joe Maher scored 4 points in the opening half and Luke Kelly scored 1-2 but apart from those two there was little scoring threat. Offaly played long ball with the wind but Meath coped well with that. The big problem was the amount of possession Meath won from the breaking ball - almost every kickout was won by them. Cunningham played well in patches but most of the ball he got was well out the field and I think he got just 1 point. On balance the better team won and 9 points was just about a fair reflection of the game

[SearingDrive]

Well that was my first time seeing the U21's in action and I had been looking forward to seeing them in action and Peter Cunningham in particular. However being just 1 point ahead at halftime after playing with a stiff breeze meant a huge task ahead in the second half. Meath were strong in the central positions and had flyers in the forward line (in fact all three full forwards had super games). Joe Maher scored 4 points in the opening half and Luke Kelly scored 1-2 but apart from those two there was little scoring threat. Offaly played long ball with the wind but Meath coped well with that. The big problem was the amount of possession Meath won from the breaking ball - almost every kickout was won by them. Cunningham played well in patches but most of the ball he got was well out the field and I think he got just 1 point. On balance the better team won and 9 points was just about a fair reflection of the game

Thanks for that, Dublin won the other s/final, by 3-7 to 0-6.

[Bord na Mona man]

Offaly were in this game for most of it and the scoreline looks harsh. Meath were the stronger side of course. Very dominant in midfield, some excellent inside forwards who had a great knack of losing their markers at the perfect time to finish off a scoring move.

Offaly needed to build up a lead in the first half, but missed a few early chances with some poor shot selection.
Meath kept in touch by controlling midfield and generally gobbling up any kickouts and breaks.
Also Offaly gave away a couple of cheap scores through silly fouls and dissent.
The ref decided fairly early on that Offaly were the side with lesser ability and generally punished them for fouls and pick ups. He gave Meath the benefit of the doubt on a couple of marginal ones.

For the first 20 minutes, Offaly generally lead by a couple of points with Joe Maher and Luke Kelly doing most of the damage, however Meath put in a late burst of points to lead 8-6 near the break. Offaly hit back with a goal from Kelly to grab the lead at half time, but it still looked like that Meath held most of the advantages.

The 2nd half turning point was when Offaly had an overlap in front of goal and looked set to score when a Meath back read the danger and took a chance on coming flying out to intercept a pass. Meath went straight up the field and pointed to level. This was a 4 point turnaround and the winning of the game.
Seamus Mattimoe and Bryan McMahon starting to run the show up front and Meath pushed 2 points ahead before hitting their first goal the killed the game. Offaly hit the bar soon after and any chance of a comeback ended there. A few Offaly heads dropped at this point and Meath forwards start to ghost around the place unmarked and really crank up the pressure. Meath got their 2nd goal at the very end to put the cherry on the icing.

Offaly used the short kick pass in attack a lot throughout the game. Kicks from the half forward line into the full forward line. This worked well on some occasions, but on others it offered the Meath back a 50-50 chance to intercept or at least apply severe pressure. When there was space to run into players should have used it more to draw out the backs and give a more accurate pass out of the hands.

Meath looked that bit sharper overall and perhaps the replay in the previous round brought them on a bit. I'd expect them to give Dublin a good game in the final. Also, it was noticeable that this was a Meath side that played some very intelligent ball-in-hand football. Great movement and awareness off the ball. Not typical of the more agricultural football that Meath traditionally play. In contrast, there were times when Offaly player in player had unmarked options either side of him and never spotted them or never heard the call.

[High School Musical]

I, like a lot of you, approached this game with quite a degree of optimism. By the time I left Parnell Park last night though, deflation and disappointment were the prevailing emotions that I was feeling.

While I won’t go and jump on the anti-McDonnell bandwagon just yet, I do feel that some of our failings can certainly be attributed to him. A simple analysis of some of the key facets of last night’s game don’t paint a particularly favourable picture for McDonnell. His system is clearly not working. He also seems to be limited in terms of his tactical ability. A number of problem areas for Offaly last night needed to be addressed, yet he let them go for far too long.

Prior to throw-in, I was very impressed with the apparent physicality that the Offaly lads seemed to possess. Carroll & Gethings won the first throw-in and by the 6th minute we were 2 points to no score ahead. Then, it started to go downhill. Meath began to unsettle Offaly with some pacey, direct running. A stinging effort off the crossbar was a precursor of the danger that lay ahead.

Last night we were very susceptible to the running attack. The fact of the matter is that most teams, at all levels, are susceptible to this sort of attack. But the difference with a team that is operating at a higher level is that they will identify this weakness and remedy it as best as they can, not allowing the same problem to continue over the course of 60+ minutes. Early on, I thought we were doing well. Defensively, we looked reasonably solid when we had numbers behind the ball. On a number of occasions last night though, Offaly defenders and midfielders had their excellent defensive hassling work undone, as one inside pass to a completely unmarked Meath man led to a score. I don’t know how many times this happened, but I can definitely recall 3 separate occasions. Such an occurrence is very demoralising for any team. McDonnell appears to have employed a defensive system whereby the end product should be a result of the respective parts. Unfortunately, what appears to be happening is that a number of these parts are not pulling their weight. As a result, the system is failing. Defending in numbers is causing a few players to defend lazily, relying on the defensive group as a whole to do the work. Alarmingly, under McDonnell, Offaly are now starting to concede some pretty big scores. With the system that he has tried to introduce, should this not be the sort of thing that we would have eliminated first?

Our full-back line had a tough evening. 0-7, 1-3 and 1-3 were the individual tallies of the Meath inside forwards. A more stringent analysis of this, however, would suggest that most of the damage came from further out the field. The ability of the Meath half-backs, midfield and Half-forwards to attack with pace left the Offaly full-back line under immense pressure. Often, the Offaly man was drawn out to meet a Meath player, leaving his own man free to receive a simple pass and take an uncontested score.

At midfield, we were absolutely cleaned out of it in the air. In the first half alone, Meath won 8 clean aerial possessions to just one from Offaly. The second half brought about a very slight improvement as Offaly won 4 to Meath’s 3, but all 4 of these were on opposition kickouts. A basic fundamental principle of football at any level is to win and retain possession from your own kickout. In terms of the scraps at midfield, it was Meath who won the bigger share of the breaks, winning almost twice as much possession of the breaking ball from kickouts as Offaly did. How McDonnell looked at what was going on at Midfield for so long, is a question that has to be asked.

I was looking forward to seeing Eoin Carroll, Peter Cunningham and Joe Maher, all who haveimpressed in recent times, to see if they could impose themselves at the U-21 grade. These 3 players were always going to be key to the outcome of this game. As it turned out, Carroll had virtually no impact on the game and Cunningham too struggled to get into the game as he would have hoped. On the positive side of things, Joe Maher stood out as our best performer on the evening. In the last 5-10 minutes he came further out the field as Cunningham took up a position in the inside forward line. This change was a real desperation move and lessened the impact of both players. Admittedly, changes needed to be made, but in this instance, they simply didn’t work.

Luke Kelly and Ruairi McNamee had some good moments but Kelly, in particular, surrendered possession cheaply on a couple of occasions. Fair dues, he scored a cracking goal right on half-time, but overall this just kept Offaly in touch for a little longer than we should have been.

I was disappointed with our lack of urgency in the last 9 or 10 minutes, when the game was still there to be won. Luke Kelly’s point left only 5 in it, but Offaly never really mustered another decent attack of note in the next few minutes, with a couple of half-chances being turned over in good positions by Shelly and McNamee, and the heads started to drop. Meath soon pulled away, and in truth, their second goal was only the icing on the cake.

[Fargo Boyle]

The ref decided fairly early on that Offaly were the side with lesser ability and generally punished them for fouls and pick ups. He gave Meath the benefit of the doubt on a couple of marginal ones.

Thats an interesting persepctive on how referees officiate matches. Is this a general statement or something you have come to see over a longer period? Or are you a ref yourself?

I often wonder at the ebb and flow of refeering decisions and how to come to decisions. Interesting perspective.

[Bord na Mona man]

The ref decided fairly early on that Offaly were the side with lesser ability and generally punished them for fouls and pick ups. He gave Meath the benefit of the doubt on a couple of marginal ones.

Thats an interesting persepctive on how referees officiate matches. Is this a general statement or something you have come to see over a longer period? Or are you a ref yourself?

I often wonder at the ebb and flow of refeering decisions and how to come to decisions. Interesting perspective.

I've seen it occasionally, but it would be standard human emotional behaviour anyway.

What would the term term be - cognitive prioritisation, selective attention, confirmation bias.
Take a particular of car for a test drive, over the next few days you suddenly start noticing lots of other drivers in the same car. That sort of lark.

For example, notice how a ref might in the middle of a game start whistling for an offence like overcarrying a number of times in quick succession.
It's not that players have suddenly decided to start breaking the rules. More likely that after whistling for offence, the ref begins paying greater attention to that particular aspect and starts counting steps more actively. Suddenly it's top of the queue of his mental checklist. Refs supposedly make several thousand neural decisions per game.

So, I reckon at an early point he would have felt that Offaly were the team that needed greater policing.
This was due to Meath running the ball a lot early doors and Offaly going in with the attempted tackles.

So then there was a marginal free for a pick up (I think it was Philip Foy) when I thought the ball was fractionally off the ground, yet a couple of clean pick ups by Meath which went unwhistled. Probably because the ref wasn't as tuned in, or subconsciously gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Finally, I don't think it was any sort of factor in the outcome, lest it be seen as whinging.

btw, I've only ever reffed challenge matches and training minutes where you can let most things go, up to and including GBH!

[Daleamar]

I would agree with High School Musical,

Tactically Offaly werent up to scratch at all. Played a sweeper (Peter Cunningham of all people) in the first half with the breeze, maybe sweeper is a bit much, maybe more of third midfielder but more often than not he was behind his half back line. Not an ideal position for a lad who seemed to be on fire the last 2 times I've seen him, scoring wise, against Longford and Kildare.

Offaly kickouts were poor, Offaly trying to run onto a kick-out but as they got away from there man, the kickout was misdirected, often into the hands of the man our player was getting away from, no chance. Offaly continued to try this even though it wasnt working.

No sweeper as such in the second, Cunningham was midfield for the start of it, dont think anyone else was, yet we were a point up at half time to face a strong breeze. I must be missing something on the sweeper system.

Meath generally kept in a free man in the full back line (sweeper), mopping up ball that Offaly tryed to kick from too deep the whole first half, absolutely telegraphing the passes, made it very easy for the sweeper/half back to get to the flight of it. This trend never changed throughout the whole first half. Offalys joy in the first half came from working the ball in further. Got 1 or 2 from the long balls, from breaks.

We went for goals from very early in the second half, this is inexperience I suppose but I think this is where managment steps in, it meant Meath could all funnell back in front of the goals, knowing Offaly are going for a goal. I think it was 4 attacks in a row and we were in shooting distance, a point or two from those and we would have been in it for a lot longer.

McDonnell was slow to make subs I felt too, saying that, the subs that came in didnt change the game an awful lot. The last sub in got what, 20 secs on the pitch? I dont get this at all, if hes not timing the game then hes not doing his job. Plus the game was over at that stage, trying to be seen to make changes?

Meath were a better team, no doubt about it, some serious forwards. The Offaly boys tryed hard for the most part and fair play to them. Some players who will seriously improve the senior outfit in the next few years, if they stick at it.

[DBoys]

Dissapointing result,seems like they just met a much stronger team

[Ahlethimoutwithit]

We were beaten in key areas around the field alright, but with better decision making and less aimless kicking away of possession then we could have pushed this game to the end. Beaten all ends up in Midfield, we went to catch the ball all the time instead of breaking it, loads of bodies in defence, yet no pressure on the ball carrier, so the clever running of the forwards allowed passes to be completed easily enough. Meath jst went through the motions until an opening presented itself.
Re Mgt, there were some glaring changes to be made, but they left some lads on till the end who were well beaten all during the game.

[DBoys]

Ahlethimoutwithit...I understand your passion and hurt ,its the same for all of us but the simple fact is it doesn't matter if Mickey harte was the current manager,you win if you don't have the players and the simple fact is the players are not there in either u21 or senior,the county simply cannot compete in two codes unless there is a change(WHICH I DON'T SEE HAPPENING)then people may just get used to this.

[Daleamar]

Ahlethimoutwithit...I understand your passion and hurt ,its the same for all of us but the simple fact is it doesn't matter if Mickey harte was the current manager,you win if you don't have the players and the simple fact is the players are not there in either u21 or senior,the county simply cannot compete in two codes unless there is a change(WHICH I DON'T SEE HAPPENING)then people may just get used to this.

Dont agree with that for a second, well th ebit about the u21s anyway. Had it not been for wasteful shooting and poor tactics we could have been 5 or 6 up at half time if we scored a few more of them wides we kicked. Different ball game then.

This change is what? I agree there is change needed, some say its already starting to change.... What would you change that would make up compete all of a sudden?

[High School Musical]

Dont agree with that for a second, well th ebit about the u21s anyway. Had it not been for wasteful shooting and poor tactics we could have been 5 or 6 up at half time if we scored a few more of them wides we kicked. Different ball game then.

This change is what? I agree there is change needed, some say its already starting to change.... What would you change that would make up compete all of a sudden?

I've said my bit already, so I dont want to get drawn into a massive debate here about this.

But I do want to point out this much. Daleamar, you mention the wasteful shooting in the first half from Offaly. As far as I can remember, and I'm absolutely open to correction on this, but Offaly kicked only two wides in the first half on Wednesday night. One from Sean Doyle, I think, and the other might have been Aaron McDonagh. I think there may have been 2 other efforts that dropped into the keepers hands (one from Cunningham anyway). Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that we werent nearly as wasteful in this aspect of the game as you might lead us to believe. Meath themselves kicked 4 or 5 wides in the first half, plus we were let off the hook with their goal effort that struck the crossbar. For us to have been 5 or 6 points up at half-time would basically have required a 100% chance conversion rate from us, which you're almost never going to get. It is selective analysis to suggest that we could have gone in with that sort of lead.

[Daleamar]

I've said my bit already, so I dont want to get drawn into a massive debate here about this.

But I do want to point out this much. Daleamar, you mention the wasteful shooting in the first half from Offaly. As far as I can remember, and I'm absolutely open to correction on this, but Offaly kicked only two wides in the first half on Wednesday night. One from Sean Doyle, I think, and the other might have been Aaron McDonagh. I think there may have been 2 other efforts that dropped into the keepers hands (one from Cunningham anyway). Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that we werent nearly as wasteful in this aspect of the game as you might lead us to believe. Meath themselves kicked 4 or 5 wides in the first half, plus we were let off the hook with their goal effort that struck the crossbar. For us to have been 5 or 6 points up at half-time would basically have required a 100% chance conversion rate from us, which you're almost never going to get. It is selective analysis to suggest that we could have gone in with that sort of lead.

Mc Namee kicked one at least, and one short, Luke Kelly dropped on short and one wide I think... It was rash shooting with a wind.... Not to mention how many aimless balls went out over the sideline, over the endline or was mopped up by the Meath defense, all because it was kicked from too far, with options elsewhere. 4 or 5 extra points in the first half wouldnt have been hard to imagine Offaly scoring. My fellow spectator and I agreed towards the end of the first half, we were going to regret missing all those chances.

[DAF]

Did Cunningham really play as an extra midfielder/sweeper?

Because if he did then the manager needs to have his head examined, he destroyed Lonfgford in the senior matcha few weeks ago by playing between the full and half forward lines.